Arsenal are looking to sign Leicester’s Riyad Mahrez in addition to Jamie Vardy, according to reports this evening in The Sun.
A move for Vardy looks set to be completed in the next 48 hours and it’s now suggested that Arsene Wenger will further bolster his attacking options with the acquisition of the Algerian international.
Mahrez, who was voted the PFA Player of the Season as he helped the Foxes to the title, moved to Leicester two years ago from French side Le Havre for a fee of £400,000.
The report is lacking in any real detail – it mentions a release clause, but doesn’t list even a ballpark figure. There’s also a vague hint that Theo Walcott could leave should Mahrez arrive at the Emirates.
In truth, we’re not quite sure what to make of this. It could just be opportunistic speculation piggybacking on the Vardy story. That said if you’d mentioned we were interested in Vardy on Thursday afternoon we’d have laughed in your face.
Still…7 poos. Surely we can’t sign both? Or could we?
Trade them for Walcott. Straight up, no take backs.
I would love to see us try with a cheeky bid of walcott+20mil.
Walcott and the OX +20m and its a deal
Done.
Over paying a bit there walcott plus 5 is more than enough
first lets kick them in the head so they would pay Theo’s salary
If we buy Vardy and Mahrez, do we get Kante for free?
While stocks last.
Buy 2 get one free ???
I think that one’s been done mate.
Only if Arsene remembered to cut the coupon out of the Mail’s sports pages.
Yeah, go on then.
Why not, Wenger going out with a bang would be fun!
Mahrez would just be perfect for that right wing.
Who would you rather, Vardy or Mahrez? Up for Vardy down for Mahrez
I don’t think you thought your question through as thoroughly as you might.
So much for being a smart-arse.
Pretty conclusive I agree. Not sure what your problem is
Think he was being funny as, if you had done it the other way round your post wouldn’t have been hidden. Calm down we’ve all had a drink! 🙂
This is more exciting than the more confirmed Vardy news.
However considering its a Sun article…
wow! Vardy might end up scoring 40 EPL goals with assists from Mahrez and Ozil…Dreams!
EPL => PL
Arsene is cleaning the bank. Loving it.
Even if the poo meter rate was a 10, I would still dream for this signing.
Kante is the only one I would buy from them.
Why are people after kante we already have players for that position.
We already have players for all 11 positions. Otherwise we’d have forfeited every match last season.
Imagine Barcelona saying why do we need Suarez, we got Messi and neymar in that position.
It’s a bit different considering teams only really play one defensive midfielder. Especially in an attacking team like ours.
Injuries. Suspensions. Many games.
We are not barcelona,we have work with a budget not with cheat codes,I’d rather we’d buy a good cb that we actually need than a cm we can do without
I wouldn’t be surprised if snapping up Vardy was a plot to lure Mahrez as well.
Or a smokescreen? With new reports that Leicester might counter offer Vardy something, this is getting quite strategery-ish.
How can you compare Kante’s case to Suarez’? We just bought 2 players in Kante’s posotion already. El Neny and Xhaka.
Elneny, Coq, Xhaka and Kanté would be a bit overkill.
Not really! If we are going to be a team who tries to move the ball at the middle, then let’s be the best at it. Plus, we are competing on 3 or 4 fronts with the most injury team of the last decade. It’s not like wasting our money anyways – let them fight for the position and whoever doesn’t make can be sold back maybe even with a profit. Lest we forget, setting ourselves with two defensive midfielders for some champions league games is not the worst idea.
Good..that means we will be selling some players too starting with Theo which will revamp our attacking front…and I believe it’s right to go and get any quality available. .just can’t wait for certain targets to make themselves available.
One thing for sure Leicester fans won’t love us any more.
ummm who gives a shit about leicester fans man!We used to be in that position,man city,man utd got players from us and won championships.We are doing it now cos we want to win a fuckin championship.
And ..we are now doing it because we can!!
Unless he’s got a release clause it’s never, ever going to happen. No way Leicester would sell both.
99% this is just some nonsense form the Sun hoping to capitalize on all the Vardy news to generate some more clicks for their insipid advertisers.
Can’t see Mahrez staying at Leicester when both Vardy and Kante leave. Actually I thought that Mahrez would be their only player leaving for a bigger club few weeks ago..
Agreed, I don’t see how Leicester could allow this to happen. It’s a true smash and grab – we would decimate the current champions while significantly strengthening ourselves. This has to be a bunch of Sun-driven drivel.
Kinda depends on long term view of ownership at Leicester. If they think of last year as a once in a lifetime fluke then they may be inclined to cash in while sick is high. If they have genuine ambitions to compete for title again then they do all in their power to retain current squad. The cynic in me thinks the former is more likely and given the right prices they’ll take the cash and look to build a team aiming at mid table finish and a long term residency in the premier league
*stock is high
Sun is shit paper they even didn’t detected that we trigger vardy relase close when everyone else was reporting that we did. Also alexis – vardy – mahrez would be a devastating combination behind them the lad with most assist 🙂
To be fair though ranieri has already said if they don’t want to be there he wouldn’t stop them. Hope fully we put him to the test!
Why not this is still Leicester and they are still a small club. They may not necessarily sell him to us but I’d be surprised if no one bought him. People seem to think one championship makes you a big club, it doesn’t. Also his value is at its highest during this window due to his age and coming off the back of a player of the year season.
Honestly think if we give them Walcott + Ox (loan for a season) + 10m they should bite our hand off.
Why would they?
They would have to be mental. Mahrez is worth about £30-40m alone.
Walcott will go nowhere unless he gets the same obscene salary we pay him. I can’t see anyone doing that unless he gets a massive pay off.
Mahrez is the kind of player Wenger likes to play on the the left or the right because of his creativity. If this is true then, Mahrez on the right, alexis on the left and ozil in behind vardy. Oh bye bye Walcott!
This will not happen given we get vardy, which is fantastic in itself.If it does go through though,i’ll start to question my beliefs because this is not wenger,he is not this ruthless.Surely he won’t sign the duo that won the premiership right?
he is doing the thing that murinho does, when he came to chelasiht second time he bought 3 players that we lacking and they won the league, also he is buying shit overpriced players on top of that in every club because he doesn’t care for any of those teams that he managed and he showed that now when saying united is his home, he only cares for his personal glory and how many titles he won.
I say add Kante too!
I might be in a minority here (or I might not be and people are just cautious about sharing this view because of the “lack of ambition” brigade on social media), but even if we were to win the league, would signing the three best players from the previous title winning side not make it all feel a little hollow? Have to be completely honest, there’s even a part of me that would feel quite strange about having both Mahrez and Vardy in the side next year. Maybe it is sentimental of me, but I’d much prefer for us to… Read more »
No
You clearly are in the minority. If we get the vahrez. We defined are the top if not first contenders of the championship. We will be better off than we are now.
That’s two additions you’re talking about, Mahrez and Vardy. So that would be us keeping our nucleus, while adding a couple. You’re contradicting yourself.
Yep, you’re in the minority here.
Except his thumbs are currently standing on 74 each way. People need to stop trying to clain victory for their opinion.
* Majority (Arsenal fans are romantic & I love it)
Mate, we just want to win the league
If we won the League, most people would be too pissed to reflect that deeply.
Hahahahaha.What! Hahahahahaha
According to the Sun.
Would be awesome though.
I guess we have to be realistic and say it’s not happening. I don’t even want us mentioned by the Sun after their “Float like a butterfly, sting like an RIP” Ali headline today.
Eurgh.
“Vard-ian angel: England striker Jamie Vardy gets blessing from higher power EXCLUSIVE: SUN on Sunday takes Prem ace’s boots for divine intervention”
This one too,
oh my god!(facepalms)
Anyone have thoughts on when Vardy will be officially announced, assuming no leaked pics? After the Euros???
From what Ornstein says, it’ll be quite soon. Apparently he’s making his decision right before England leave for the Euros.
Mahrez or Mkhitarayan and then Ricardo Rodriguez and I’ll be well pleased with the Summer business.
Backup if mkhitaryan doesn’t work out 😉
If you can’t beat them, sign ’em up !
I’ll take morata over vardy, vardy good for a counter attacking team which we are not!
morata is no better than giroud
Worse, actually, on his history. Now there’s the argument that really there’s some great world class striker lurking inside him somewhere and he’s just never got the chance to let it out…except that he did this year, and didn’t really do great.
He’s scored 15 goals for juventus since 2014… I’m really struggling to see the hype around him
He plays in Italy but his NPG/90 is at the same level as the top scorers in the EPL. That’s where the hype comes from. The problem is that for one season in Milan, Balotelli was posting Suarez/Neymar type NPG/90s. Not this season…
On top of that Italy is notoriously difficult for strikers to post big numbers. That’s all the more reason Higuain’s numbers are nuts.
Morata is a young and exciting prospect, but he’s not world class (yet), and we have promising young strikers
We do?
Apparently there’s a highly promising lad named Thierry Henry been seen with our youth teams, hopefully we can wrap that signing up ASAP.
Have you considered we’re not a good counter attacking team because…we haven’t had very good counter-attacking players?
With Vardy, Alexis, Iwobi, a healthy Jack and Aaron, and now maybe Mahrez….let’s just say Ozil and Xhaka will be having a field day when we get the ball back.
This team is going to start running around like their luscious locks of hair are on fire when we get the ball back, and it is going to be glorious.
COYG
Except
Why not get the clearer picture? Ozil creates lots of chances, & Vardy is a good finisher, that is why we are getting vardy.
…Yet
I highly doubt it!
This just looks another plain Journalism Bullshit to sell news and nothing else
Leicester would definitely not be willing to sell two of their best players from last year to the same opponent.
That would be something mouth-watering if it happens though, I have to admit!
If we sign the Vahrez connection then next season will likely be Wenger’s last. That’s the only reason I can see him being so ruthless as to sign players purely to win the title next season.
It’s not like he has been signing players NOT to win the league up to now. Wenger said several months ago he thinks Vardy is a 30 million pound player. To get him for 20 is a bargain in his eyes. I don’t see any change in Wenger strategy.
So, Arsenal’s pulling a “Bayern vs. Borrusia” on Leicester, huh? Exciting!
So 6 poo’s for Vardy and 7 for Mahrez, the poo-meter is getting calibrated.
I’d rather we took Mahrez as the right wing has been our weakest position recently and spent money on a striker who actually suits our style of play. Considering the players we have in midfield we don’t need Kante.
Mahrez doesn’t track back that much and is not physical or aggressive when he does. If we sign him Hector may well decide he has Barca DNA because he’ll be facing jail break after jail break on his side with no mid-field help. Like seeing Hector go forward? Sorry. Hector can’t come out and play. He has to defend all the time.
Mahrez is not fast either. He’s a taller more offensively productive Santi. I’d rather Draxler, thank you.
Are the down votes because you disagree with my concerns or they scare the hell out of you too?
Taller and more offensively productive Santi? Actually I won’t look further than that! Let bellerin overwork if that’s what we are getting in Mahrez!
Draxler has been pretty much shit for maybe 2 years now. Also consistent injury problems. I don’t think so.
Seems highly unlikely but I certainly won’t be complaining if it happens.
BBC now reporting that Vardy will decide tomorrow if he signs for us. Otherwise everything agreed.
Still possible we won’t get either then …
Alexis, Vardy and Mahrez, with Ozil behind them? I’d love that, but it sounds too good to be true. In reality, I expect us to play something along the lines of Alexis, Giroud, Vardy, with Wenger shoe-horning Vardy into a right winger role just because he’s fast.
Time will tell, but this is already the most interesting summer in years. So far, so good!
vardy is not a wenger, roy tried him couple of times for England and that doesn’t work he is true number 9. Also I can see next season many times wenger changing the formation and playing with two strikers up front with both giroud an vardy depending on the game and result.
sorry I meant winger, but surely tomorrow will be wenger’s boy.
He’s not a winger, but he runs the left hand channels a lot. Like someone else we knew. Run Alexis on the right, Vardy left. Wenger’s probably figured out his ‘preferential vision’.
But as Ranieri said, the secret to Vardy was setting him free as long as he tracked back. Perhaps Hodgson tried to ‘positionalize’ him too much, taking his game out of his game.
It would actually be a very wise move for Leicester to sell Vardy, Mahrez and Kante for top money now. They could get 70-80 million for them (arguably they won’t top a PL-winning season) and find some good replacements with Champions League season coming up.
They have 70-80 extra million to spend anyway with the new TV deal + CL money. If I were them I’d much rather keep Vardy, Mahrez and Kante and sign 70 million of new players than lose them and sign 150 million of new players. That’d be a recipe for disaster in a team like theirs that is so based on everyone being in it together.
If this is true, Wenger naysayers are going to have a really tough time finding things to complain about (I guess you can already kind of see it with the above comments. “But I only want Kante!” uhhh, spare me). Mahrez is one of the most gifted offensive players in Europe, and we would have plenty of depth to compete in all competitions even accounting for injuries and general fatigue. As someone already mentioned, this is the kind of Game of Thrones-level shit Bayern pulled on Dortmund, and this is exactly how the game is supposed to be played. We… Read more »
Let’s stay away from rape, yeah?
3 people don’t want to stay away from rape? ?
I’d like to hear the explanation for that one.
They forgot their dialing wands.
That is, fat fingers, tiny buttons. I hope.
And maybe ease up on the pillage. This is 2016 ffs. Now let me get back to watching Vikings season 2.
well you are wrong, they already found what to complaining about us signing vardy. They are saying he will not suit our tactic he is to old he is only one season wonder, he has only pace and finishing nothing else he could not dribble etc. All those complaining were going in meltdown last season on the internet every time vardy scored and were saying if only we had vardy in front of ozil. The will be never pleased, if we sign mahrez they would find things to complain surely.
I think he will be a great signing
My issue is with the managers deficiencies not the players. We’ve had different players over the last ten years but the same problems have persisted
as much as i love mahrez, really i do…he’s really made for the right wing position…but i’ll take mhkitaryn over him…..
wait, i’m not so sure again…i’m confused…guys help me out here!!! 🙁
Fuck mahrez , I’d rather for for miki from bvb
Let’s just buy the whole Leicester team.
Its Wengers strategy take out Leicester’s top players and sit them on the bench and the title is mine!
Damn. Wenger was seen sitting with David Dean a Wembley and then soon after we are suddenly signing improvements all over the board.
Maybe he told him to be more selfish for once and sign what is needed to get Shit done and cut loose those whom are not carrying their own weight around the club. Or something along those lines 😛 I love it, good to see us being more cuthroat and throwing our weight around in the transfer market.
I will take both Vardy, Mahrez hu cares if LFC fans hurt us,it’s a doggy dog world fish eats fish
The Sun. 10 poos automatically.
I can’t take this anymore. A few days ago I didn’t want Vardy. Now I’ll be upset if he remains a Leicester player. What is this world coming to? ?
It is interesting to me that people seem to think we should invest in the right wing. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I remember Alexis playing his best football on the right.
I agree. I think we should go for the left side instead.
But Mahrez as a backup to Alexis works for me.
In their current forms, alexis is mahrez’s backup.
I’m sorry but I just don’t see a Vardy or Maharez move going through.
Be careful not to bump into furniture while your eyes are closed.
I’d honestly prefer Mkhitaryan
Nah, two poo or two an half.
Chill peeps how reliable the sun been again? This ? ? ?
People are getting excited over Vardy??!?!
Arsene has done a great job at lowering our expectations of what kind of players we get at arsenal
What’s funny is that you think poaching a 20 goal scorer from the Prem-winning team is “lowering our expectations.”
so you would take vardy over higuain?
Higuain took a job in Italy over Arsenal. He isn’t going to come here. He thinks he’s too good for us.
Lord have mercy, yeah we should be aiming for Benzema, Lewa, Aubameyang or Higuain?
Newsflash those players would be very expensive, or their clubs wouldnt sell them.
Also I second what Huss said.
Even at 29 if the price is 30mil you are talking about 2-3 good seasons, more at a stretch.
20mil*
So good value for a couple seasons
how much money do we have in reserves?
I dont expect my comments to be popular. Just seems like the masses of arsenal fans don’t use their brains anymore and get excited over any signing
The reserves are reserves. You don’t spend that, you keep it in reserve for the day the shit hits the fan.
Vardy is a signing to be exited about. for any team in PL. the problem is we’ve waited so long (4 5 years?) for Wenger to realise the need for a goalscorer that our expectations went as high as a girl who’ve waited till 30s to lose her virginity. no good sex is good enough to wait 2 fucking decades :))
Sexist pig
just let the bastards be and go fucking sign a Mkhitaryan. poor Ranieri
At the risk of being hidden due to many, many, many thumbs down… I’ll ask it anyway: Am I the only one sheepish about taking Leicester’s “Crown Jewels”? I get that it’s a business and deals must be made, but for me this would just seem like buying the championship from the champions. Go ahead and boo away!
Let’s not stop at just buying the team. Considering how few goals they let in last season we should make an offer for their lucky goal posts.
Just a thought…:-)
I didn’t think we paid any attention to the current bun?
If Vardy goes, they might as well just cash in and set themselves up for sustained success anyway.
Remember, that Leicester team succeeded on tactics, consistency, not playing in Europe and not getting injured. A lot of their boys are a bit overrated temporarily but Vardy is better than an injured Welbeck and Mahrez genuinely good so I am happy for us to snaffle them up. But noone else. This is a team we beat twice.
And if Vardy carries on being racist, diving and a generally unpleasant individual whilst at Arsenal ?
Then he’ll be Wenger’s problem, not yours. Don’t worry yourself about it, Vardy’s behaviour will not reflect on your reputation.
What a stupid reply …
I prefer the club I support not to be tarred by the behaviour of unpleasant individuals. Our current players are not perfect but they do appear to have some decency about them.
I have watched Vardy’s goals on the Interweb and have seen no racist incidents in any of them. 🙂
Looks like pure balls designed to get clicks from upset foxes fans IMHO
I’d love to have Mahrez. He could fit in anywhere right across the three behind the main striker.
I do have reservations over Vardy but Mahrez would definitely help in allaying those fears. It’s important to have good chemistry in the final third and theirs would be ready made.
That said, this is from the Sun so it’s probably a load of horse shit.